The Organised Private Sector (OPS) insists that the lingering fuel scarcity in Nigeria since December last year, has become shameful on the part of the Federal Government and a national embarrassment
Backlash has continued to trail the lingering fuel scarcity that remains unabated since December 2022. This time, members of the Organised Private Sector (OPS) have come hard on the Federal Government for doing little to arrest the ugly situation which is crippling the transport sector across the nation. The OPS, therefore, insisted that a situation where a product with regulated price of N165 now sells between N300 and N650 in different parts of the country, is shameful and an embarrassment to the citizenry.
The OPS noted that while it is fully in support of the proposed fuel subsidy removal by the Federal Government in June 2023 as contained in the 2023 Appropriation Act, government must intensify efforts to effectively complete the Turn-Around-Maintenance (TAM) of the four refineries owned by the country before the June 2023 subsidy regime terminal date.
OPS further proposed to the government to, as a matter of urgency, institute a judicial panel of enquiry that would involve employers and representatives of workers to investigate the core reason for the fuel scarcity and the elements culpable in the fuel subsidy regime.
“The debate over the removal of fuel subsidy has remained over many years with stakeholders having different views. However, the stance of the Organised Private Sector in Nigeria has been the gradual removal (of fuel subsidy) with clear roadmap and cushioning mechanism for the citizens.
“It should be noted that over a decade the country has spent well over N20 trillion on fuel subsidies. In 2022 alone, over N5 trillion was expended, and over N3 trillion budgeted for same in the 2023 budget.
“It thus becomes worrisome that the same product that is being subsidized and supposed to be sold at pump price of about N165 per litre, is being sold for over N300 and in some instances N650 per litre across the nation,” the OPS said in a statement it issued in January 2023.
Members of the OPS who described the fuel scarcity as shameful to the image of the country include the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), and the National Association for Small and Medium Enterprise (NASME). Others are the National Chambers of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) as well as the National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI).
In the statement issued by NECA on behalf of the OPS, the body also contended that, “Since 1973 when fuel subsidy mechanism was introduced as a tool to cushion the landing cost of the petroleum products as a result of the Turn-Around-Maintenance of the refineries, subsidy has taken a frightening turn, becoming a major drain in the purse of the nation”.
It further stated that “It is no gainsaying that the subsidy regime as currently operated is shrouded in secrecy and fraught with corruption. The homogenous amount spent in the guise of subsidy regime is literally being used to subsidie inefficiency, corruption and consumption. In other climes, these funds would have been judiciously used for more productive activities that will directly impact the lives of citizens, most especially provision of infrastructural facilitates.
Condemning further the scam call subsidy, the OPS noted that there is fraud associated with the regime. The statement added, “A few years ago, the report of a Presidential Committee on the Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel Subsidy payments between 2009 and 2011, showed that about N667 billion (about $4.3 billion) was being mismanaged annually subsidizing millions of litres of petrol that Nigerians never used or even needed.
“Recent comments by high ranking government officials, including the comptroller General of Customs also alluded to the fact that the subsidy scheme is a brazen rape of our scarce resources”.
